


Rekindled

by FireFaceOutlook



Series: Eye Contact - Ace x Sabo, Soul Mate AU [4]
Category: One Piece
Genre: I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:19:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireFaceOutlook/pseuds/FireFaceOutlook
Summary: He had died saving Luffy, and now he was alive.





	Rekindled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RyuichiSakuma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyuichiSakuma/gifts).



> **A/N: I haven't worked on this in over seven months! I bet you all thought I was done! Just kidding, I'm sure you knew I wasn't. Enjoy~ :3**

Ace woke, disorientated and aching fiercely throughout his whole body. He felt like he’d been torn apart and mended back together again. His chest and back were particularly sore. Upon opening his eyes, he was greeted with complete darkness. He reached up to toss off the blanket he’d gotten buried under, but his hands met cold wood and he froze.

“Guys?” His voice sounded rough to his own ears and his throat felt dry and scratchy, as if he’d gone awhile without water. “Marco? Haruta? This isn’t funny!” His fists pounded against the wood. “This isn’t funny, you guys; let me out!”

But no amount of screaming or shouting resulted in any form of his nakama and it was starting to get hard to breathe. He took deep breaths to calm himself, though the air smelled like rot. Ace’s mind worked furiously, trying to find the last thing he could remember…

  


_**Luffy’s face was lit with a burning glow, highlighting his terrified expression, and normally Ace would destroy anything that harmed his brother, but he was just in so much pain and he felt like sea water was flooding his crisped lungs. He coughed out blood as the burning sensation was removed from his body and he dropped into Luffy’s arms, muscles spasming at the sudden lack of anything in the center of his body except a cold that burned and began to spread through his limbs--**_

  


Ace jerked back into himself, panting. The pain in his chest grew. He had died saving Luffy, and now he was somehow alive -- six feet under, but _alive_. He could smell the dirt under the scent of rot and wood. He didn’t know exactly how far down he was buried, but he was determined to get out. He tried to light a finger on fire to see how much room he had, but nothing happened. Fear gripped him -- he had died, so he lost his Devil Fruit, right? But no, he could feel the familiar spark of warmth in his soul. He grabbed it and pulled, and his fist lit up ( _and on a different island, ruled by a Shichibukai with a iron-stringed grip, a blond yelped as his own flame ability roared to life and seemed to burn hot, but no, that wasn’t quite right, it wasn't hot because he was fire now_ ). Like a catalyst, the coffin exploded into flames*, but Ace decided to deal with his lack of control later as he raised a fist above himself, dirt beginning to smother the flames.

_“Hibashira!*”_

  


Climbing out of the smoking pit was exhausting, but well-worth it as he sprawled not far from the hole, the breeze cooling his body and the scent of the ocean easing the last of his previous anxiety. He gazed up at the blue, blue sky -- the color had never been more welcoming, but it confirmed his previous suspicions: Sabo was alive and never thought to let him or Luffy know. It made a dull anger surface within him, but he was too tired to rage like he had as a child, so he dozed off instead.

  


_It was hot, too hot -- it felt like he was burning within his skin. The air was cold, almost painfully so. It was dark, so dark that he might as well have been blind in both eyes._

(But something was off because Ace wasn’t blind at all.)

_“Ace!”_

_Suddenly he was in his own body, yet still trapped in the darkness. In front of him, on his knees, was a blond man in a noble-like suit. The man was curled over his knees, fingers buried in his own hair so tightly that his already pale knuckles were stark white. Pained sobs echoed through the shadows, originating from the stranger who wasn’t a stranger._

_“I’m sorry,” he cried. “Ace, I’m so sorry!”_

_He raised his head and Ace’s gaze focused on the pink scar tissue and the filmy look over the left eye. The man’s face was stained with tears and to Ace’s horror, right before his eyes, the color was beginning to drain from the blond hair. The grey quickly began consuming his skin and suit as well, the remaining colors dulling in a sickly fashion, almost as if he was dying. Ace reached out almost without thinking, fingers brushing the man’s cheek, and the greying slowed. The color returned to his eyes, but the rest remained as it was._

_"A-Ace...?"_

_Ace opened his mouth to answer, but suddenly felt like he was being pulled away. Ace struggled to stay as blue eyes closed and the blond began to fade.*_

_“No!” Ace shouted._ “Sabo!” Ace gasped for breath, a hand to his chest, which felt rough under his palm. He looked down, not surprised but still upset to find a large scar spreading from the center of his chest, where Akainu’s killing blow had landed and melted his internal organs without a moment of hesitation. He was still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that he had died, but looking upon his captain’s gravestone and the recent newspaper leaning against his own, he couldn’t put it down as a strange, long-term dream. Plus, the sake cups in front of the newspaper… Well, there was no better proof that Sabo was alive and had even visited him. The anger towards his thought-to-be-dead brother lessened a little. And so Ace’s first day of reincarnation passed. He stayed up late into the night, gazing up at the ocean of stars above, promising never to take such a thing for granted ever again. Who knew he’d be seeing stars again? Just as dawn was breaking through the shadows, Ace found himself falling asleep again. He figured his narcolepsy had two years to catch up on. 

__  


After officially reuniting Sabo in some weird dream – but it was definitely Sabo there, not a figment of his imagination –, Ace was both excited and nervous to finally get off of this island. It felt like he spent a lot of time there, but in reality, it couldn’t have been more than a week. He’d made a fishing pole out of coffin splinters and woven grass (he never thought he'd be so grateful towards Izou's lesson in braiding hair) to keep himself fed and was working on controlling his flames again, which was coming on more successfully than Sabo’s attempts if the frustrated pull on their shared ability was any indication. He could feel Sabo’s presence in his chest – it was almost exactly the same feeling as his ability’s presence, but it sent a more figurative warmth through him than a literal one. He wondered if that was what Sabo felt, if he felt Ace at all. Needless to say, Ace was more than a little disappointed that Sabo’s warmth was getting further away instead of closer. He wondered if Sabo actually knew where he was referring to when he said he would wait for him.

  


**((Tentative Reuniting with Whitebeard Pirates ahead))**

  


About three days after his dreamscape visit with Sabo, Ace noticed a ship approaching the island. It looked pretty small, the kind of ship that wouldn’t draw too much attention, and Ace was sure that that was the whole reason behind it. He squinted and could make out about four people milling on the top deck but he couldn’t identify any of them. As it turned out, he didn’t need to. One of them walked towards the railings, leaping over it, then blue flames appeared around their arms and they were suddenly airborne instead of landing in the water, heading for the island. Ace’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“Marco!” he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.

He saw his nakama jerk to a stop for a moment, then the phoenix was flying towards him faster than before. It didn’t take long before he was slammed into with enough force to dispel all the air in his lungs and cause his flames to appear where he’d just been kicked. He stumbled, but managed not to fall, rubbing the burning area on his chest. He heard distant protests from the others on the ship, but he didn’t care about that much because he suddenly was pulled into a bone-crushing grip.

“You _asshole_ ,” Marco growled, voice sounding strained with tears. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again, yoi!”

Ace would forever deny the burning of his own eyes as he wrapped his arms around Marco in return.

“I missed you too.”

When they finally released each other, the two of them sat on the crest of the hill, in front of Whitebeard’s grave. Ace couldn’t stop stealing glances at Marco as they waited for the ship to dock at the island. He looked so, so tired. Ace wondered what went on in the past two years, but Marco promised to explain everything only after they were on the ship and away from the island.

**((Temporary End))**

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N: Surprise! It's a preview! Alright, here's my explanation (excuse) for not having this finished. As you can see, if you've read at least all of the Eye Contact series so far, I've stuck to the canon timeline as best as I could (barring the whole "Ace revive" event). I want Ace to reunite with the Whitebeards -- who doesn't? (crickets chirp) That's what I thought. But I don't know where the Whitebeard Pirates are and how many of them are even alive after the Grudge War against Blackbeard. Aside from that, there's Revolutionary Base explosion, and I don't know where _they_ are, and (following part of Harrowing Inferno) I need to know that so I can decide if Ace will stay with Sabo or go with Marco after the soulmates reunite. :) Hope you enjoyed the preview. **


End file.
